Subvert the Dominant Paradigm

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On Ideology

Recently, I read some interesting literature from the Crimethinc Collective. If you aren’t familiar with their work, you can check them out here. If you like what you see on the website, I recommend purchasing “Days of War, Nights of Love” and the sticker pack. They also distribute some of the hardest, nastiest hardcore punk I have ever heard, so if you get down like that, check out these bands. Okay, enough shameless promotion, let’s get on with todays post…

If the Living Revolution is going to be successful, (however we choose to define success), there must be a few general principles that guide our behavior and action. These beliefs will be an amalgamation of little pieces of every book you have ever read, every movie you have ever watched, every class you have ever taken, every conversation you have ever had. Many of the individual ideas we each bring together will be shared by the larger group, but some will not. What I’m getting at here is that in every interaction we have, we are influenced by the stimulation we receive during that interaction, and in turn, that influence affects how we think about the world. These new thoughts then determine our goals, expectations, and actions. The system of belief that develops from the interactions we experience becomes our Ideology of Life.

Being confident in what you believe about the world, and possessing a willingness to make sacrifices to defend what you believe, will be an important part of the Living Revolution. Possessing similar ideologies and sharing experiences will allow us to build trust and confidence in our relationships and in our Community. We have to know and understand why we do what we do, and it is imperative that we believe strongly in what we are doing. I’m not advocating for some kind of “mind control” or passive conformity to some innane set of rules. On the contrary, the parts of our individual ideologies that don’t mix with the rest are as important as the values and principles we share. The beliefs we share can be defined in such broad terms that there are a veritable plethora of reasons to hold a certain belief.

For example, you can be in favor of backyard gardening because it saves you money, or because it allows you some measure of control over what you eat. You can hate capitalism for how destructive it is to the Earth’s environment, or because of the economic disparity that is inherent in that kind of economic system. You can love riding your bike because it keeps you healthy, or because you don’t want to support the Oil Wars in the Middle East. You can fear the government of the United States because of how they treat their prisoners of war, or you can fear them for how they treat the soldiers who fought to defend the “freedoms” this country supposedly stands for. Your reason for believing what you believe about the world isn’t necessarily important, as long as that reason compels you to ACT on your beliefs.

Let’s start talking about our shared beliefs. Let’s start building some discourse on why we hold certain beliefs, and discuss what we do to ensure our beliefs can be seen in the world around us. Let’s start thinking of ways to share what we believe with the rest of the world, and convince them the way we live is a better way to do things. We can talk about politics or music, we can talk about food production or outdoor sports. Drop a comment and tell me something you believe and why. Who knows what we might have in common…